


Battle

by Burgie



Category: Star Stable Online
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 00:37:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13493151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burgie/pseuds/Burgie
Summary: The Dark Riders play Mario Kart on the Nintendo Switch. Chaos ensues.





	Battle

**Author's Note:**

> I've never played a Switch before so I had to do some Wiki-ing for this, hopefully it's not too horribly inaccurate.

Jessica was the only one of the Generals allowed to go shopping anymore. Darko had been banned from just about everywhere, as had Sabine, Katja had been away for too long so she didn’t know what shops sold what, and Mr Sands was technically supposed to be dead. That left Jessica to take the barge to the mainland and visit the shops to buy groceries, among other things. Usually, she came back with a present for them, and today was no exception. Though, the four other Generals looked rather confused when she set down the box on the table in front of them and sat down herself. 

“What is this?” asked Darko, picking up the box and opening it. He peered inside, and Jessica rolled her eyes.

“It’s a game, you idiot,” said Jessica, snatching the box from him and removing the console itself and the handheld parts. She also produced three extra controllers in addition to the one that came with the console.

“Well, you kids have fun,” said Mr Sands, getting up from his seat and stretching. All of his joints cracked, eliciting winces from everyone else in the room.

“Aww, don’t you want to stay and play?” asked Jess, mirth in her green eyes as she looked at him. “I can always make another controller appear.”

“No, no, I’m too old for those kinds of games,” said Mr Sands with a chuckle. “But you kids have fun. Don’t destroy any property, please, or if you do, clean it up afterwards.”

“Oh, don’t worry, we’ll have fun,” said Jess with a smirk.

After Mr Sands had left, Jess set up the console and fished for the instructions in the box.

“Why do you need paper instructions?” asked Katja, tapping at the screen of her phone. “You can just look up everything online these days.”

“Darling, you’ve only known about the internet for a few days,” said Jess with a laugh. Katja bristled, tapping on a link and beginning to read out the instructions on the page while Jess snickered.

“You idiot, that’s for the Wii U,” said Jess.

“Well then, what’s this thing called?” asked Katja, gesturing to it.

“It’s a Switch,” said Jessica. “Only the newest game console, of course.”

“Hmph. Well, it looks like a Wii U,” said Katja, tapping in the actual name of the console. She brightened when it appeared on the screen. “Oh hey, there are game guides and everything.”

“Yep, and here’s the game that we’re going to be playing,” said Jessica, producing the game case. The front read ‘Mario Kart’.

“Karts?” Sabine barked. “Who needs a kart when you have a Kaahn?”

“Well, the only horse games are either simulation games or they suck,” said Jess. “And I figured that playing video games together might be a great way to bond.”

“That is a most excellent idea, Jessica,” said Darko. Jess preened under the praise, looking quite smug.

“Okay, now how do we play it?” asked Katja, tapping the name of the game into her phone. A flash of pink hit it, and suddenly, the phone vanished from her palm. “Hey!” She glared at Sabine, who smirked at her. “I had important stuff on there!”

“What, like pictures of Alex’s butt?” asked Sabine, snickering. Even Darko smirked. Katja blushed.

“Hold on, there are instructions in the case,” said Jess, pulling them out. But the paper booklet flashed red for a moment before bursting into flames in her hand. Jess dropped it, stamping on it to put the fire out, but the damage had been done- the text was now unreadable. “Sabine!” Now, two girls were glaring at the sniggering Dark Rider, who was still dressed in her Dark Rider outfit.

“Hey, won’t it be more fun this way?” asked Sabine, grinning. Jess sighed.

The game finally loaded, though it took Katja and Darko a while to figure out how to use the controls. Sabine just pressed everything until something worked, then scrolled through the characters until she found the right one. She tapped it, grinning.

“It has the same outfit as me,” said Sabine, grinning over the Shy Guy that she’d chosen.

“God, you’re a weirdo,” said Jess, selecting the pink gold Peach. It wasn’t her preferred colour, but well, she was a princess. “Hey Darko, you should be Waluigi or Wario.” Darko looked extremely offended at her suggestion.

“Jessica, I am neither extremely short and fat, nor am I a beanpole,” said Darko, a hand to his chest. “Your words deeply offend me!”

“Hey, most of Wario’s fat is muscle,” said Jess. “And everyone loves Waluigi.”

“Then why didn’t you choose him?” asked Darko.

“I wanted to be Peach,” said Jess with a shrug. “In gold. Because that’s cool.”

“Who is Rosalina?” asked Katja, frowning at the blonde princess on a quad bike. “I’ve never played any games with her.”

“Oh, she was a new princess added a few years ago,” said Sabine. “Some sort of space princess, I think. Very emo. You know, just like you.”

“I’m choosing her but not because of what you said,” said Katja, selecting her character.

Darko took another ten minutes to choose his character. In the end, he’d narrowed it down to Bowser, Dry Bowser, or King Boo.

“Just choose already,” Jess groaned, her patience at its limit. Humming thoughtfully, Darko’s finger hovered between Bowser and Dry Bowser. At last, he selected Bowser. “Finally!” Jess threw her hands up in the air in celebration.

“Now we have to choose a track,” said Katja. Jess sighed, closed her eyes, and tapped a random track on the screen. And then, the fun truly began.

Once the race started, the four of them struggled, at first, with figuring out how to go. At last, they all found the right controls, and came upon the first set of item boxes. Katja got a mushroom, giving her a speed boost, while the other three received varying degrees of good or bad items. 

“Oh, ouch, green shells, those are the worst,” said Jess, leaning over Sabine’s shoulder to look at her screen.

“Why, what do they do?” asked Sabine, finding the right button and launching her shells. All three of them collided with the wall, then ricocheted back to hit her. “Hey! I am your master, don’t disobey me!” Jess giggled.

After several races, the group of them got used to the controls, and actually started to play like normal people and not aliens from another planet. Katja had lost several races by this point, and had become quite fed up with it. So, concentrating for a moment, she used her magic so that she suddenly shot ahead of the others, who began to crash into walls or turn around backwards, convinced that they were still winning. Katja got up and did a little victory dance when she won, laughing. As she did, though, the illusions vanished, leaving the other three blinking. And one of them furious. 

Sabine roared as she launched herself at Katja, wielding her controller like a weapon, and began beating her around the head with it.

“Don’t use your powers to cheat!” Sabine snapped, her very eyes burning with rage. Katja ducked, bringing her own controller up to deflect Sabine’s blows.

“Hey! Don’t break those, they’re expensive!” Jess called, and shadows coiled around the two girls, yanking them apart. Sabine’s eyes burned, and the damaged controller that Katja was holding suddenly burst into flames, causing her to yelp and drop it. “Sabine, I swear, you are never invited to play games with us again.”

“Calm down, girls, there’s no need to fight,” said Darko, conjuring up two new controllers to replace the damaged and destroyed ones. “Perhaps using magic will make things more fun.”

“How so?” asked Katja, starting up her new controller.

“You’ll see,” said Darko with a smirk as he chose the next race.

When ink suddenly splashed out of the screen of Jessica’s controller, making her shriek and drenching her face, they realised exactly what Darko had done.

“Oh, now this is brilliant,” said Sabine, grinning as she shot off a blue shell towards the current leader. It flew out of Darko’s screen and smacked off of his forehead with an amusing ‘thunk’.

“Hmm, it appears to have backfired,” said Darko, rubbing his forehead, but retaliated with a thunderbolt that shrank down his opponents on the screen as well as causing lightning to flash in the room. “Haha, now I can squash you like bugs!”

“I think not, asshole, I got a star,” said Katja as she blasted past him, her character flashing in all of the colours of the rainbow. She snickered as Rosalina gave Bowser a cheeky wave as she passed.

“Hmph,” Darko huffed.

Several races later, the room was littered with banana peels, shells of various colours, ink stains, and even a few charred spots where fireballs from fire flowers had hit or the little bob-ombs had fallen out and blown up. The first one had fallen directly into Jessica’s lap, causing much screaming and running around as they’d tried to dodge the ticking time bomb.

“Maybe we should stop and at least clean up,” said Katja, gazing about the room.

“Aww, is someone a sore loser?” Sabine cooed. Katja scowled at her.

“Hmm, why don’t we sort out our differences with one of these battles?” asked Darko, looking at the main screen. He tapped on it, letting all of them see what he was doing.

“Hmm, that looks like a good idea,” said Jessica. “And fun.”

“Just maybe turn the real items spell off now?” asked Katja. “The room is already messy enough without burst balloons.”

“Bah, what’s a little more mess,” said Darko with a wave of his hand. The battle round began, and, while the other three battled fiercely to knock out the other opponents, Katja circled around in the distance, only coming close enough to snag a balloon or two from her opponents. When the others caught on and began attacking her, Katja counted the balloons. But she smiled as her last balloon burst and she got the ‘game over’ screen.

“Ha ha, it looks like I will be the winner,” said Darko triumphantly as he drove straight into Sabine, who clutched her controller tightly and steered desperately away from him.

“I don’t think so,” said Katja, checking her nails.

“But you lost, all of your balloons were burst,” said Darko. He grabbed an item, a red shell, and shot it towards Sabine, which burst her one remaining balloon. “Ha ha, you see? I won!”

“No you didn’t,” said Katja, grinning.

“Oh, really? Well, if I lost, I will eat the cartridge,” said Darko. Katja giggled. Darko’s face fell when the results came up, listing Katja as the winner.

“Would you like a slice of humble pie with that cartridge?” asked Katja, getting it out of the console. Darko sputtered.

“But how?” asked Darko. “I lasted the longest!”

“You idiot, the one with the most points wins, that’s how it works now,” said Katja. Sabine laughed.

“Fine,” said Darko. “But I will know for next time. And next time, I will beat you.” And, with that said, he looked Katja dead in the eyes, popped the cartridge into his mouth, and bit down on it like it was a chip. He grimaced, face contorting oddly as he chewed, tears coming to his eyes at the bitter taste.

“Want a glass of water to wash it down?” Katja cooed. Darko looked like he wanted to spit it in her face, but he swallowed, then gagged.

“Ugh, that was awful!” said Darko, scraping his fingers down his tongue.

“This is why we can’t have nice things,” said Jess with a sigh.


End file.
